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IN NEW YORK,
a bad day was a cab tearing through a puddle on a rainy day, dousing you with dirty water. Or getting stuck on the subway back from Shea after the Mets lost in the bottom of the ninth. Or having to spend the afternoon at Bloomingdale's shopping for pants with your mom. Annoying, but basically harmless. Apparently, a bad day in Indiana involved destroyed friendships and being threatened by the neighborhood psycho. After shaking loose of Archie, I ran to the cafeteria as fast as I could, but by the time I got there, they were just pulling up the food trays. I ran to the counter anyway, but the lady behind the cash register shooed me away.

“We stop serving at twelve thirty-five on the dot,” she said.

I glanced at the clock. It was 12:37.

“What's a couple of minutes?” I said. “I need to eat.”

The lady smiled. “And you can tomorrow. By twelve thirty-five.”

Conversation over.

I turned and took in an entire lunchroom full of seventh graders throwing milk cartons, eating cookies, gossiping, and joking. I vaguely recognized some of the kids I had met earlier in the day, but Brett was nowhere to be seen, and neither were any of the other kids in his clique. I didn't know where to go.

Except there was Patrice, sitting by herself at a table near the door. And she was staring right at me. But then she turned away, buried her face in a notebook, and began to write furiously. I remembered seeing a whole stack of those notebooks on her bookshelf: her diaries, where she recorded every slight that had ever been directed at her in her twelve years of miserable existence on this earth. I didn't have to think too hard to wonder what she was writing about now.

Even so, I almost walked across the room and asked if I could join her. I felt just that weird and lonely. But then Archie clumped up, collapsed in the
chair across from her, and took a bag lunch out of his knapsack. With nowhere else to go, I plopped down at a mostly empty table in the middle of the room, opened my own knapsack, and grabbed
Of Mice and Men
, the novel we had been assigned for English. Not that I had any desperate urge to get a head start on my work, but with no food and no friends, I had to do something to keep myself from shriveling into a depressed ball and blowing away. But even though the first few sentences were good, I just couldn't concentrate. I felt too hungry and alone to read. I riffled through the front pocket of my knapsack, grabbed my cell phone, even though they weren't allowed in school, and wrote a text to Steve:

But when I pressed send, the stupid thing wouldn't go through. Just as I was about to try again, I felt a strong grip on my shoulder.

“Hey, hey! You know the rules!”

Suddenly I was staring into the face of an insanely muscular bald guy. Clearly a phys ed teacher turned lunch monitor.

“The phone!” he said.

Argument was pointless. I handed it over.

“Pick it up tomorrow in the assistant principal's office with a note from home.”

No phone. No way to contact my New York friends. No way to contact anyone! Totally depressed, I put my head down on my knapsack. Which is when I finally caught a break. That's because I felt something soft under my right temple. Curious, I looked inside the knapsack. Squashed underneath my new biology textbook was a brown bag.

My mom had packed lunch!

I turned it upside down over the table. Out spilled a turkey sandwich that looked like it had been run over by a truck, a small bag of baby carrots, and a box of raisins. Not much. But at least it was something. With the turkey smashed beyond recognition, I started in on the raisins and just sat there, waiting for the rest of the gang to show up. They didn't. And when I crumpled up my lunch bag to throw it away, I felt something else: an envelope with a note in my mom's squiggly handwriting.

 

To my brave young man on his first day of school. I am so proud of you. Love, Mom.

 

There were still ten minutes left to lunch. But there I was, sitting by myself in a giant cafeteria with an empty box of raisins, trying not to cry.

 

“About time you showed up, Brain!”

Fudge threw his shirt at me. The locker room smelled like feet.

“Where were you guys?” I asked. “I looked for you during lunch.”

Eddie laughed. “You didn't actually go to the cafeteria?”

“Well, yeah,” I said stupidly.

Fudge grinned. “Lunch is at the parking lot, Brain.”

Brett poked his head around the corner. “Come on, you freaks! I want to get out there already!”

Fudge and Eddie pushed past me to get outside. I quickly changed, dumped my clothes in an empty locker, and ran behind them, up a ramp and onto the football field. I don't think I'd ever actually been on one—not one that was regulation size, anyway. It was the real deal, a hundred yards long. And curving around it was a track. Stenciled in the center of the field was the name of the football team: T
HE
Q
UAYLE
Q
UAILS
.

By the time I got outside, Brett and the rest of the guys and girls were stretching. Next thing I knew, the gym teacher walked up. Guess who? The guy who took my cell phone. Just my luck. But if he recognized me, he didn't let on. Probably collected about fifty cell phones a day.

“All right!” he said. “The first few phys ed classes are going to be about working off some of that summer flab. Conditioning, my friends! So we'll start with laps. Slow and steady! I'm looking for endurance here! Get moving!”

I stood up. In New York, phys ed was kickball in the park. Was I really going to have to spend an entire period running? A minute later, we were going around the track. For half a lap, everything was cool. I took it light and easy. Endurance, after all. But then I felt a whack on the back of my head. Brett passed me, laughing.

“Pick it up, Brain! The girls are kicking your butt.”

“But he said to take it slow!” I said.

Wrong answer.

Another whack on the head. This time Fudge cruised by, cracking up. I turned my head just in time to have Eddie slap me in the nose.

“Oh, dude, sorry!”

Brett turned back and yelled. “Come on, Brain! Move it!”

What happened to slow and steady? Ugh. I pumped harder, thinking of the cliff at the quarry. Was this another test?

We went around once. Twice. I'd almost catch up to Brett, but then he'd suddenly step on the gas and he'd be halfway around the track ahead of me. Fudge and Eddie
were almost as fast. They'd slow down, then scamper off like a couple of rabbits, looking back and laughing.

Fine, jerks, I thought. I can do this.

I pushed hard off the balls of my feet and started driving forward as fast as I could. And amazingly, I began to catch up—even with the guys running full out. I passed Eddie first. Then Fudge. Then bam! I was right up to Brett! Wheezing, my eyes tearing from the wind, my heart pounding out of my chest, I lunged forward and passed him!

And he stuck his foot out and tripped me.

I flew off the track right into the Q of Quails and curled up in a ball with scraped knees and my hands pocked with gravel. I couldn't breathe.

“Is that Goldman?” That was the gym teacher “Get up, Goldman!” But I was immobile.

Then I felt something squeeze under my back. Suddenly I was in the air. Brett had picked me up.

“It's all right, Coach, I'll get him in to the nurse! Looks like he went down hard!”

I saw the gym teacher give Brett a thumbs-up.

“Good man, Connelly!”

 

I walked stiffly down the hall, with Brett supporting me.

“What was that about?” I asked. “You didn't have to trip me!”

Brett seemed to be keeping himself from laughing.

“I didn't trip you, Brain. You were just running too hard out there. You gotta learn to take it easy.”

My body hurt. I didn't want to have to explain this all to the nurse, either. It was my first day!

“This way, dude.”

Brett pushed open a door and guided me inside. But it wasn't the nurse's office, just an empty classroom, one of the science labs.

“What are we doing in here?”

Brett checked to make sure nobody was in the room, then grabbed a chair and propped it against the door so no one could get in.

“Gotta talk to you, Brain.”

“Wait a second,” I said. “Aren't we going to the nurse?”

Brett smiled. Suddenly he was back to being the likable guy I had met at Calvi's a few weeks earlier. “You don't need a nurse. I got us out of gym because I need you to help me out.”

I have to say that I was pretty surprised. One minute the guy is taunting me, the next he's asking for help? Besides, how could I, the new kid in town, help the Savior of Indiana?

Brett pulled a chair next to mine. “You're gonna need to get us into the movies on Friday night.”

I blinked. “What?”

“
The Bloodmaster
, dude. We all wanna go see it on Friday at the mall, but it's rated R.”

This was the horror flick Brett, Eddie, and Fudge had been talking about on the way to the quarry.

“That's it? That's all you need me to do?” I asked.

Brett nodded. I took a deep breath and smiled for the first time in hours. Finally some good news. This was going to be easy.

“There's six other movies in that mall,” I said. “Just say you're going to a different one. I do it all the time in New York.”

Brett shook his head. “Too bad this isn't New York.” He stood up and leaned against the blackboard. “They won't let you in unless a grown-up buys the tickets, then goes in with you. They've got security watching.”

I shrugged. Still seemed easy enough to me. “Then just get your mom to go.”

Brett raised his eyebrows. “I don't think she's gonna blow off the Crusade for Christ so we can all see
The Bloodmaster
.” He paused. Again came the golden grin. “Besides which…if my mom was there, that would ruin my plan.”

This was getting complicated. “What plan?”

Brett shrugged. “Keep your trap shut, Brain, but Friday night, I'm going to make Kendra my girl.”

It had been a long day. It seemed like ages since
homeroom. But I still remembered what Archie had said about the Indiana rules.

“You mean you're going to…”

Brett smiled, then tilted back his head and wagged his tongue to the heavens.

“Tongue time!” he said.

I thought briefly of Nina Handleman—how I had been content enough with her top lip.

“Wow,” I said, smiling. “Yeah, I guess you wouldn't want your mom around for that.”

Brett was all business again. “Exactly. So your mom'll have to come.”

My mom? Could I tell Brett I hadn't talked to her in two weeks?

“Wow, Brett, I don't know.” I sighed. “She gets wigged out if she cuts herself shaving her legs. She's not big on horror movies.”

Brett shook his head. “You're not thinking of this the right way, Brain. Picture it! Kendra sitting next to me. Girl on screen being eaten by monster. Kendra burying her head in my chest. Me comforting Kendra. Kendra looking up lovingly. Me stuffing my tongue down her throat.” Brett looked at me. “You don't want to stand in the way of something that beautiful.”

Didn't sound too romantic to me. Then again, if it were me and the girl was Nina, well, I might think differently. I stood up. By that point, I realized what was
expected—another twist in a completely insane day.

“I can try, man,” I said.

Brett was moving to the door. “No, no. Don't just try, Brain. Get it right, okay?”

“Okay,” I said. Then I shrugged. “But what if she says no?”

Brett opened the door. “Simple. If she says no, you make her say yes. Or else I'm not coming to your little bits mits—” He paused and searched for the word. “Your biz mizz—” He paused again. This time an arm went out as though he were trying to grab the words out of the air. Finally he just turned to me and looked right in my eyes. “Make it work or none of us are coming to your little party.”

The door slammed and I was alone with the test tubes.

I PEEKED
outside the door, checking for any hall monitors who might catch me wandering around school in the middle of sixth period in my gym clothes. Coast was clear. I stepped out.

DINK clump.

“It's perfect. You don't even know it's perfect, but it's soooo perfect.”

Archie had been listening outside the door the whole time, apparently.

I sighed. “Listen, I don't want to get in any trouble, okay? I just want to get back to the locker room and change my clothes, and then I want to go to last period and then I want to crawl into a hole and die.”

He shook his head. “No, no, no! You're missing the point! I know you're all nervous about the movie, and what if they don't come to your party, and whatever, but look! This is not a catastrophe—this is an opportunity!”

It had been a ridiculously long day.

“Come on,” Archie went on. “I'll walk you to the gym. That way nobody will give you trouble.”

All right, score one for the kid with the disease. “Okay,” I said. “I'm listening. Why is this such an opportunity?”

Archie handed me his book bag and smiled as he took my arm. “Because you get to solve two problems at the same time!”

“I don't understand.”

“It's perfect,” Archie continued. “You get to be a big hero by getting all the kids into the movie. And I get to come and sit next to Kendra!”

I stopped short. “Wait a second! You're coming to the movie too?”

Archie kept right on moving, even faster than before. I had to hurry to catch up. “Of course I'm coming to the movie!” he said. “That's how I'm going to steal Kendra away from Brett!”

“But wait—”

“It'll be easy!” he said. “She'll end up giving
me
the tongue. Not the dumb jock.”

At this point I just gave up fighting. Okay, I thought, if Archie wants to live in Fantasyland, then let him. He can come to the movie and make an ass of himself and all I have to do is let it happen. At least then I can say that I did my part to get him near Kendra, and he won't crash my bar mitzvah.

“You're right, Archie,” I said. “If I can make this work, it'll be awesome. But help me out here. How am I supposed to get my mom to buy six tickets to a horror movie on Friday night?”

“You could tell her your life depends on it?” Archie said.

That's when Patrice walked by. You could tell by the look on her face that she wanted to avoid me just as much as I wanted to avoid her. But with everyone in class, the halls were pretty much empty. And I'd like to say that we patched things up right on the spot. I'd like to say that I apologized, sincerely and completely, and Patrice graciously acknowledged that she had been responsible as well. Instead, things got worse.

“Hey, Patrice!” Archie said. “You'll never guess! Evan's going to get me a date with Kendra!”

Patrice looked like she had just taken a bite out of a piece of roadkill.

“He what?” she said to Archie. I guess she was so stunned, she actually talked to me. “You what?”

“I said I'd
try
, Archie! That's all.”

But Archie wasn't listening. He was on a roll. “We're all going to
The Bloodmaster
Friday night.”

To my surprise, Patrice laughed. “This I gotta see.”

Was she really going to be such an annoying nag? Didn't she understand the pressure I was under?

“Good luck,” I said. “
The Bloodmaster
's rated R. You won't get in.”

Patrice's face hardened. She wasn't nearly as cute when she was mad at me. “Oh, don't worry,” she said. “I'll get in.”

“Fine!” I said.

She said it back. More like yelled it. “Fine!”

With that, she stomped down the hall away from me, the second time in one day.

“Don't worry, Evan,” Archie said. “She wants you.”

I resisted the urge to punch him. “What I'm worried about is getting my mother to buy these tickets.”

Archie laughed. “Piece of cake.”

“For one thing, we have no money. For another, she'd rather poke out her eyeballs with a fork than sit through
The Bloodmaster
. And on top of everything, I haven't even spoken to her in two weeks!”

Archie smiled broadly, cheerfully. He giggled. He snorted.

“What? What's so funny?”

“Don't you have some sort of magic Jewish power
to make people do something they don't want to do?”

And like a flash, it hit me. I DO have a magic Jewish power: the power of…guilt!

 

I've heard people of all religions say they know about guilt, but I think Jews really do have the corner on this particular art form. Jewish guilt is not something you can teach, it's not even something you can define, but perhaps I can offer you this opportunity to study it.

There are three components to Classic Jewish Guilt.

Now watch as I deploy those elements. I may be young, but I've got a real gift for this. It is a gift given to me by ten thousand years of suffering.

 

It is late afternoon. The bus has dropped me off at Pam's house. I enter with my book bag. I look exhausted. Pam and my mother are drinking coffee at the kitchen table.

“Hey, tiger!” Pam says.

I sigh.

My mother says, “How was your first day of school?”

I haven't really spoken to my mother in two weeks, so she is surprised when I say, “I think it'll be okay, really.”

Pam laughs. “Well, that doesn't sound too enthusiastic.”

I sigh again, then say, “I think I'm going to lie down for a while.”

I carry my book bag into my room as though I've been walking through the Sinai Desert. I lie down on my bed.

Shortly thereafter, a knock. My mother peeks her head in the door.

“You okay, kiddo?”

I sit up on my elbows. My mother enters, sits on the bed next to me.

“Sure, Mom. I'm just adjusting.”

A meaningful pause.

I clear my throat. “You know, Mom, I realized today that I've been unfair.”

My mother looks surprised. “What do you mean?”

“I know this isn't your fault,” I say. “I know you've had to make a lot of really difficult choices and you're doing the best you can. And I really respect you
for the way you're handling things.”

My mother blushes. A tear comes to her eye. “Oh, honey, I don't actually think I'm doing all that well by you.”

“No,” I say emphatically. “You are. You've been so strong and I've been…I've been mean, Mom. I'm sorry.”

She hugs me. “Thank you, Evan.”

“You know,” I go on, “I just think that kids have to go through trials. That's how we grow. Something tough happens and we just push through.”

She wipes her eyes. “Sure.”

“I have to learn to be strong. As strong as you've been.”

She's starting to look a little guilty. I'm doing very well.

“So when Friday night comes, instead of hanging out with the rest of the gang and going to the coolest movie of the year, I'll stay here with you and Pam.” I pause. “And practice my haftorah.”

A quizzical look. “What movie?”

“Oh, it doesn't matter.” I pull my notebook out of my book bag and set it on the desk. “The point is I don't really need
friends
. Look, I would love more than anything to find a way to get everyone in to see it, but I can't because it's R-rated and their parents won't let them. Besides, I've got all I need right here in
this tiny windowless bedroom. What I need is faith in myself. Like you have.”

I begin doing my math homework.

“Wait a minute, Evan, I never said you don't need friends.”

Here's the key moment: I DON'T LOOK AT HER.

(A note: The temptation here is to turn, look really excited, and beg her to let you go. But you have to hold on, because it's about to get even better.)

“Oh, Mom,” I say, sharpening a pencil, “it's all right.”

She kneels down and looks me in the eye. “Evan Goldman, you stop being silly. Tell you what. If your new friends have parents who won't take them to see some stupid R-rated movie, then I suppose we'll just have to take matters into our own hands.”

“Oh?” I say.

Mom takes my hand. “We'll make sure everyone gets into the movie, easiest thing in the world. Then I'll get lost—like I wasn't even there, okay?”

The smile has to be carefully chosen here. You cannot smile triumphantly; you must smile with simple, radiant gratitude.

“Do you mean it, Mom? After all I've put you through, you would do that for me?”

She kisses me on the cheek. “Do your homework, kiddo. Dinner's in an hour.” She turns to go. She opens the door.

Wait for it. Wait for it.

“In fact,” she says, “I'll even buy the tickets!”

 

And that is how we all got to
The Bloodmaster
on Friday night.